Reading: We read several short read-alouds this week with themes of working together, being kind, trying your best, and being yourself. We also started reading workshop, where I use the read-aloud to teach a lesson, and then give the kids time to read books that they love independently or in partners. During this time, I hold conferences to work with the kids individually, or meet with groups to work on specific strategies. We will also read several class novels throughout the year, the first being Shiloh. Ask your kids about their favorite types of books, articles, or magazines. What do they hope to read this year? What would they like to try that's new? Share some of your favorites with them, too!
Writing: This week we spent a lot of time building ideas to write about. We gathered many different lists of topics as well as learned about the MANY different writing genres that they could try. For example, a student interested in Star Wars could write a movie review, a letter to George Lucas, a spin-off using the same characters, or an informational piece about the making of the movie. Our whole class will write several of the same genre at the same time, too. Our first unit will be narrative writing. Ask your kids about how they personalized their notebooks and what they wrote about this first week.
4th Grade Math: We started our week by making math about me pennants. Each student filled out a math inventory to let me know how they feel about math and we reviewed telling time and other 3rd grade standards to help us refresh our brains. Then we got right into our first unit- place value. We worked a lot on understanding 10 times as much as and 10 times as many, jumping up and down the place value chart. Ask your student about their math inventory and how they best like to participate and learn in math. Ask them what 10 times as much as 2 tens is.
Social Studies: Our first unit will be civics/ government. We are looking forward to using books, videos, kids' news sites, and other fun artifacts to learn about how this topic.
Science: Our first trimester, your scientists will be working with us to study Soils, Rocks, & Landforms and how our Earth takes shape. We will work on skills of understanding the scientific process, working collaboratively in groups, recording accurate data, and explaining a process verbally and in writing.
Miscellaneous:
- A Message from our Librarian, Laurie Conley: This year, we will be using the databases and ebooks from the Oak Park Public Library. In order to do this, your student will need to have a library card number and PIN. The PIN is typically the last 4 digits of your phone number, but it might be something different - you can check this by logging into "My Account" at oppl.org. Please send your card number and PIN to me or to our school librarian, Laurie Conley, (lconley@op97.org) and we'll have it on hand for when we access the library's resources later in the year. Thank you!
- I sent home a Scholastic Book order form today with a cover letter explaining its purpose and how to order. If you'd like to order, they are due back (or need to be completed online) by next Friday, September 8th.
